Edited by Jean-Claude Pierre
Imagine sitting in a class, trying to do your assigned reading on Mesoamerica, but you have sweat pouring down your back and pooling on your seat. Your head is pounding as if there are a million tiny hammers banging on your skull.
You can’t focus because it’s simply too hot!
It’s winter now. But last fall, that was the reality on several days at the East Rock Community & Cultural Magnet School building — and it could happen again in the spring. On September 25, for example, parts of the building reached 84 degrees. Anneliese Juergensen, the school library media specialist, even emailed Principal Sabrina Breland asking about plans to fix the air conditioning system.
“The library is incredibly hot,” she wrote. “The kids and teachers are complaining, and I’m starting to feel lightheaded from the heat.”
In an interview with East Rock Record Reporters, Ms. Juergensen said the heat has been a constant bother. “It’s hard to teach when you feel like there’s sweat dripping down your back, and it’s gross.”
Ms. Breland also expressed intense discomfort with the heat of the school. “There were several days when the temperature was so uncomfortable that the district provided fans for staff to use.” She said this was the first time that the district supplied fans. This year, she said, “the heat did seem worse.”
The problem? For years, East Rock School has had areas that were extremely warm and uncomfortable, but this year has raised the temperature of the problem to a new level. Many students have noticed the issue.
According to East Rock Record Fall/Winter 2025 Survey, 73 percent of students said the temperature was too high in parts of the building this school year.
Autumn Dixon, an 8th grader, said it, “was pretty brutal and pretty intense. I didn’t really like it. I had to wear shorts at the beginning of the year, and I don’t really like wearing shorts much.’’
Beyond simple discomfort, high temps hurt learning. The East Rock Record Survey found that 72 percent of students said they had “trouble concentrating because it was too hot in class.”
“I kept wanting to drink water. I barely got any work in,” said Kaiden Walker, a 4th grader.
Heating issues do seem to happen every year in East Rock School. This is because of challenges in the system. Paul Whyte, Chief of School Operations for the New Haven Public Schools, said there was a problem with the HVAC system.
“We had a leak in one of the air handlers, one of the cooling units, and that had to be repaired, which affected how much cool air was circulating throughout the building,” he said, adding that “this is an issue that happens in a few of our buildings.”
According to Dr. Whyte, some of the cooling units are 25 years old, which makes leaks and breakdowns common. They are also difficult to fix. The district does try to prevent the problems but is not always able to do so.
Dr. Whyte said the district starts testing the system as early as March to identify issues from last year and uncover potential new issues. Then it tries to repair the systems heading into the summer months. But the buildings are often still hot as summer approaches, which he blames “on the age of equipment, and the fact that as we go back and forth, the wear and tear that goes into systems.”
Justin Harmon, director of communications for the New Haven Public Schools, said the problem is money and labor. “There isn’t enough budget, and there aren’t enough repair people to do all the work that needs to be done as quickly as it should be done,” he said.
These budget concerns, Mr. Harmon said, keep the school from making long-term repairs. Some are trying to change that.
“What we’re trying to do now is develop a plan that will take a look at what all of our buildings need over a 10-year period, what kind of maintenance they need, how often they’re going to need new roofs, how often they’re going to need repairs or maintenance to their HVAC systems, their heating systems,” said Mr. Harmon. The aim is to “put that into a 10-year plan that’s got a budget attached to it” so that the system can be maintained every year.
We can only dream that the school will one day stop being so hot! Ms. Breland is “hopeful,” she said, “that things will be working normally when Spring comes around.”
